Well let me fill you in on the past couple of days. I will first start with Annabelle. A little over a month ago I noticed a decent sized lump in her neck on the left side a little below her ear. I didn't think much of it because I figured it was just a swollen lymph node. She has not been sick in a long time, no fevers, sniffles, nothing. We knew we would be taking her for immunizations on the 16th of this month, so I just told Joey to have the nurse look at it and see what she thought. She did and she said it appeared as just a swollen node but if it had not gone away in about a week to call them back. Well I kept an eye on it and then noticed that Annabelle was getting 2 more on the right side in about the same place as the other. They weren't too large but if she leans her neck to one side you can see them protruding from under the skin. So, I called the doctor back yesterday and they wanted us to come in at 1:20 pm. Got there and he examined her from top to bottom. He said the nodes were actually small and that her spleen and abdomin were fine (later found out these are ways to tell if lymphoma is present). He said he wanted us to get some lab work done anyway to be safe so he ordered a complete blood count as well as a LDH test (later found out this too is a way prelimarily test for lymphoma). He said we should have the test results back today. I got a call about 11:45 and it was the doctor himself. He said that all of Annabelle's CBC counts looked normal but that the LDH test came back with elevated levels. He said he called a hemotologist at Dallas Children's hospital to see if there was anything else he should do and the specialist told him that with Annabelle's age and otherwise good health, he didn't feel anything was wrong but for us to have another LDH test done in 7-10 days. He said that the LDH levels could have been elevated due to her immunizations 10 days ago. So.... we have another lab appt. next week. We shall see how that goes. I have been reading about this online and it seems that LDH levels can show elevations for multiple reasons so I'm not too worried about it. Just don't know what the next step would be if they came back elevated again. We will cross that bridge if we get there.
No news with the job search and money is getting scarce. Joey and I have decided that we will go back to school so maybe we can use a little of the loan money to survive. I was looking online last night at different courses and it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks that perhaps going back to school to major in a specific field would take away some of this aimless wandering I have been doing for all these years. So, I looked into Occupational Therapy. It sounded so interesting and it seems like something that would be very rewarding. I am going to speak with Panola tomorrow to see about getting into some classes for the summer to get started. I try not to think about it too much because I start to wonder what in the world is wrong with my brain!! Truth is, a bachelors degree in Human Relations won't get you very far. Joey wants to take classes online to get his master's degree! I'm so proud of him. He loves school and I love to see him feel like he is accomplishing something. Well I'm going to go now. I will update more later. Tootles!
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Wendy,
ReplyDeleteAs a child I also had enlarged lymph nodes that you could see from across the room. Every time I would get a sniffle, get an immunization shot, or any other little thing, they would swell up and look like eggs under my skin. There was never an explanation, and they never amounted to much more than a mystery. In 3rd grade I had mononucleosis which caused them to enlarge even further, and to this day when I get a cold, a sore throat, or anything they pop up and out.
Yes, lymph nodes can be an indicator of serious illnesses, but I think they don't know all the mysteries of the auto-immune system. Who knows... while it is true that those lymph nodes might have been somehow connected 50+ years ago to the polymyositis I have recently contracted, I tend to believe they probably are not. Sometimes they just indicate that the body responds with "all hands on deck" when invaders are detected. "Auto-immune" SHOULD respond to "immunization" by shooting the body with bits of invading materials; that is its job. At least for the first 50+ years of my life those neck bumps were little more than a good "heads-up" to my mom that I was getting sick. I'll be praying with you that this is nothing more than that for AnnaBelle. Try not to borrow trouble, wait on what the doctors have to say, but know at the same time that this old lady had the same problem almost her whole life and except for the normal childhood "junk" and a nice crop of allergies, I have never had a serious illness until this year. That ain't bad, really.
I'll be praying for AnnaBelle.
Sandi Parks